The Talking Goldfish

The talking goldfish effect from The Umbrella Academy on Netflix by Chris White inspires me a lot. I am impressed by their successful endeavor of actualizing, with utmost realism, the visualization of the comic book’s creator. As a Visual Effects student, the scene challenges me to attempt recreating it by analyzing its behind-the-scenes. It transpires that Chris White uses a real glass with actual fish as the base effect before perfecting it in the post, but that didn’t stop me from finding an alternative- using full CG for a 5 seconds attempt of the special effect. To me, this effect is not just an ordinary VFX shot that has a 3D element blended into live footage. Instead, it is a goldfish-in-a-tank effect integrated with a human body effect of live footage that makes it distinctive, challenging, and inspiring for me, a low-budget VFX learner.

Inspired by Chilling Adventures of Sabrina on Netflix, I tried to recreate the spooky witch house to a whole new setting. Started the whole project from scratch and I had to model the house, the signboard all the way to the pumpkins. The only things I did not model are the tombstones (downloaded), the grass, and the trees (generated in Maya). Using the environment fog in Maya, I am glad that it turned out well as the fog is somewhat kind of touching the ground, making it look realistic. Perhaps, could have done the texturing better in Substance Painter to add more textures for the house.

Texturing - Nesting Doll

Created this to show diversity and inclusion. Using nest dolls (Matryoshka dolls) to represent 'inclusion' and the designs of different races on it to show 'diversity'. 

Modelled out some of Singapore's MRT interior to be textured and combined in the picture above by my groupmates. 

Lighting and rendering

Downloaded both models and textures. Only did image-based lighting.